Ray: "This synergism happens in John 3:16."
Where, Ray? Whosoever will? Hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but that's a TERRIBLY bad grammatical error on your part. First, there's a participle there indicating "believing ones," that's it. Subjunctive mood, Ray. That does NOT teach synergism, Ray.
Some might further argue that passages which command or invite belief prove that man has the ability to believe while in the flesh. But all of these commands such as "If thou art willing" and "whosoever believes", "choose life" are in the subjunctive mood. A conditional statement asserts nothing indicatively.
Mike,
I still fail to see why "God Is Love" is relevant. What are you trying to convey? I asked you to start a thread on it, but you have yet to do so.
I and others have repetitively explained our stance on each of the Scriptures you have presented here. I repeat once more, they do nothing to bolster your position.
I am well aware you mean spiritual ability...however, you base that assertion on what? Inferences that assume that natural ability assumes spiritual ability.
Scripture says God is Love. It ALSO says that God is Spirit and God is Light. Reformed theology believes and teaches these. God is Love does not trump God is Spirit and God is Light. I will ask you again to please explain how God being defined as love is relevant to this issue. I'm interested in pursuing this, and I've asked you to start a thread on it.
Ray,
On dualism. you are correct in your definition. Dualism IS rejected by orthodoxy. Logically, however, Arminianism does belief that the ultimate decision regarding salvation lies not in God but in man. Correct? Well, what you have then is the old nature giving rise to faith and then effecting regeneration along with some sort of prevenient grace.
Ok...
Now, think about, it Ray. The old nature is doing something to assist in regeneration. That's exactly what you believe.
Now, it is axiomatic that self-actualization is IMPOSSIBLE, Ray. NO POTENTIAL CAN GIVE RISE TO AN ACTUALITY ON ITS OWN. If they do, then you violate the law of noncontradiction, because something must both exist and not exist simultaneously.
Thus, in order for you to be correct, the old nature is in a state of actuality, not potentiality. One state of actuality gives rise to a corresponding state of actuality. That is TWO ACTUALITIES RAY...the old nature and the new nature right alongside each other. This IS very clearly dualism. However, Scripture does not teach that. We are entirely new creations, we are of ONE nature, with two minds. This view of one nature, two operative principles, in one person was historic evangelical doctrine, until very recently.
You are aware, I hope that a great many dispensationalists teach that in regeneration the old nature itself is not affected. The new nature is created ex nihilio ALONGSIDE the old nature. This teaching is that the "old" fallen nature remains untouched and unchanged. The Spirit regenerates and indwells the person (his body) but the Spirit does not indwell the old nature. The regenerate person is made a partaker of the divine nature but this divine nature is not his nature. The new nature is implanted in the soul, the person's single nature itself (what this view calls the old nature) is not itself recreated, eg. made a new creation.
This results in two distinct natures in the Christian. Nothing actually happens to the old nature except that it has an entirely different new nature placed along side it-this is a real dualism. This IS dualism just as you have defined it here, Ray.
Let's suppose for a moment that your Arminian view of the new birth, namely regeneration through faith is correct Biblically. If that is so, then logic should support it, because God can not by nature do something illogical.
Is regeneration by faith logical? The answer must be no, because you run into one or more contradictions or self-defeating processes.
When we are talking about this issue, we are talking about becoming a new creation or a new birth. We know that there is a voluntary decision of some sort involved. On this we all agree. We will call this X.
Now, the desire and sequent decision to receive salvation must be either a. caused , b. uncaused, or c. self-caused. If it was uncaused, then it would simply exist the same way God exists. Uncaused things, however, strictly fall into the category reserved for the Ground of All Being, God Himself, because God is uncaused. We are caused to exist by God as a matter of creation. There was a time when we did not exist. Thus, this desire and subsequent decision has not always existed, simply because we have not always existed.
It may be self-caused. This view is true only if total depravity is also true, because the definition of self-causation is that a potentiality is actualizing itself. If that is so, then we have a problem, because then it is a self-created effect which is impossible. For, in order for something to create itself, it must exist prior to itself which violates the law of non-contradiction (since it would have to be and not be at the same time, in the same sense).
We are left with option a. This desire is caused.
Now, we have three options for causation:
a. intrinsic (from inside the individual)-intrinsic monergism
b. a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic causes (from both inside and outside the individual)-synergism
c. extrinsic (from outside the individual)-extrinsic monergism
If the ultimate cause for X is intrinsic, then it is accomplished through one or more of
the following constitutive human faculties:
a. body (somatic causation),
b. mind (cognitive causation), or
c. spirit (pneumatic causation)
We must rule out a. body because somatic processes do not give rise to rational processes, thinking, and Scripture clearly rejects in John 1 any reference to the flesh with respect to the new birth.
It might be b. mind. . "Resistless logic, however, renders such a scenario absurd, indeed unbiblical, by making salvation contingent upon one's inherent intellectual acumen." Biblically, salvation extends to the full range of human beings without respect to genetic content, congenital factors, or level of education. Christianity is not a faith for scholars only. Rather, Christ says, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden" (Mat 11:28). If this option is true however, we are saying that the believer that believes has a superior mind and is intellectually superior to the unbeliever. Intellect becomes a meritorious thing.
Murray writes of the third option : "From a Biblical viewpoint, the third option, namely, that X is ultimately caused by something in the person's spirit, or pneumatically, is equally as absurd as the second option. For, in this case, the inherently possessed spirit of the one that chooses X could be said to be superior, indeed more righteous, than the one that rejects salvation. Salvation is, of course, a most glorious and holy event. Thus, we would be forced to declare that those persons who incline themselves toward salvation, thereby acting as its final, inauguratory cause, possess a spirit that is intrinsically more righteous than the spirit possessed by those who reject salvation. Such an idea is perhaps even more preposterous than the previous one in light of what the Bible teaches us that the universal state of man's fallen spiritual condition in total separation from God (1 Cor. 2:14; Rom 3:23; 5:12; 6:20; Mk 7:21-23; Jer 17:9). Moreover, the spirit, its faculties, and capabilities are all endowed to humans by their Creator, and that with complete ontological equality (Gal 3:28; Acts 10:34)."
Additionally, Arminians all REJECT monergism completely, so we can rule out option A. Intrinisc monergism altogether with their permission. Arminians also rule out the third option, extrinsic monergism, as, in order for it to be true, the Reformed position must be
true.
We are thus left with only one viable option. B. Synergism. Is it logical? The answer is NO.
Again, Murray: "we are concerned here with the simple causation of X, and thus, sufficient causal agency as opposed to becoming lost in a panoply of necessary conditions (NCs). If variables A, B, and C, are necessary causal factors, then each are necessary but not sufficient to bring about X, i.e., the desire and resultant decision to receive Christ in faith. And if they are not sufficient, then they are not ultimate. Only the final, decisive factor, D, can be counted as the ultimate cause of X. For it is not until this final factor comes to exert its force that the effect in question is actualized." In short, the ground of X in syngergism is man's faith, not God's grace, no amount of "wooing," as many Arminians say is the final deciding factor.
Synergism, then, only backs up a step the original issue of how one ultimately arrives at X. The synergist argues that God, through prevenient grace, supplies the necessary conditions which form the backdrop for a Christly decision to be made, but that the final-and therefore sufficient-factor is left up to individual. God's grace is a necessary but not sufficient condition for one's salvation. God may graciously provide all manner of necessary conditions but the ultimate outcome hangs precariously in the anthropocentric balance of human decision.
If it is true, you MUST end up with dualism, because it is axiomatic that caused actualities only become potentialities (e.g. cease to exist) or are actualize other potentialities other than themselves; or you end up with an impossible self-actualization (see above on self-causation). Dualism must be rejected, because X applies only to the self and not the creation of a self in addition to the one already in existence.
You have to come back to some form of monergism in order for syngerism to work without ending up with the heresy of dualism. For, during this period of illumination, to what do we owe the decision to choose salvation in those who manifest it? Is the locus of their decision to be found in the body, mind, or spirit? Which of these faculties compels them over their neighbor (who receives the same illumination) to make the right decision?
Intrinsic monergism is a premise that is illogical and, additionally, all monergistic forms are rejected by Arminians. Biblically, then, your view of X is always illogical. God is many things, but ILLOGICAL is not one of them, sir.
The only way around this is to posit extrinsic monergism, which says regeneration precedes faith. Only the Reformed position works both Biblically and logically.
</font>[/QUOTE]Man does not come to God because he lacks the moral ability to do so. This does not absolve man of responsibility, Ray, because he chooses freely and voluntarily.